The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence.
The basic function of popular music is to create an environment for courting, lovemaking, and doing the dishes. It’s useful because it addresses the heart in the midst of all these activities, and it will always be useful in this very important way.
Songs seem to take me a long time. I don’t know why; they’re not especially excellent for taking so long.
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.
Out of the thousands who are known, or who want to be known as poets, maybe one or two are genuine and the rest are fakes, hanging around the sacred precincts trying to look like the real thing.
Never make a decision when you have to pee.
My sense of proprietorship has been so weak that actually I didn’t pay attention and I lost the copyrights on a lot of the songs.
My reputation as a Ladies’ Man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.
Love is a fire. It burns everyone. It disfigures everyone. It is the world’s excuse for being ugly.
Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true. It is the tension…
It’s time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.
